‘Blown away’: KC NWSL just beginning pro soccer journey. But it’s an encouraging start
OK, well, first of all let’s just say here at the top that Kansas City’s temporarily and somewhat awkwardly named professional women’s soccer team — KC NWSL, if you’re into letters — is a metaphorical embryo.
Eight months ago, the team did not exist. Seven months ago, it existed but lacked a full roster or logo or crest or uniforms. Now they’re playing real games, selling tickets, and the whole operation seems to be going well enough. For now.
Their reality has transformed from the borderline crazy idea of putting together a new sports team in four months during a pandemic to an actual club with admirable ownership and investment to something else temporary:
The club is supported but not yet successful, and it is ambitious but without enough time to know if the vision is too big or too small. This is the beginning. Anything is possible, good or bad. This all comes as women’s sports appears to be in a genuine moment. KC NWSL’s potential and challenges are each enormous.
Angie and Chris Long — Kansas City entrepreneurs who secured the expansion team with a vision of making it the league’s preferred destination for top players — are not here to waste time.
“Ownership groups are changing (in women’s sports),” Angie Long said. “They’re investing in teams like they’re a professional team. They’re investing for the future, and not just to maintain, but really to grow. Sponsors are changing rapidly. They’re seeing the uplift of their own product when they associate with a women’s team. Treating it like you would treat any other professional team.”
These are broad strokes, but KC NWSL’s ultimate success or failure will be about closing gaps. Their league is home to the world’s best women’s players, but is hampered by exposure that still trails men’s mid-tier pro leagues. They have plans for what would be among the country’s first purpose-built stadium for a women’s team, but they currently play on a pitch squeezed across a minor-league baseball stadium, from the third base dugout to deep right field.
They are chasing big dreams as an effective startup, and selling $130 youth jerseys and season-ticket packages for upwards of $1,700 along the way. We’ve seen teams in Kansas City try to find a niche with affordability. KC NWSL’s vision is much different. They will not settle. They will swing big, and without apology.
“We’re at this inflection point where you’re seeing this understanding that if you show women’s sports, especially when you show the players in the world, people are going to watch it,” Chris Long said. “So I think the education curve, and having to tell the story is getting less and less. I think about the corporate conversations we’ve had in town, everybody wants to hear about it. There’s no need to explain. Now, does that result in people wanting to partner with the team? We’ll see.”
The Longs are making a big bet here, and this must be said: the difference in the professionalism of this club and the one that left town after the 2017 season is so big that any comparison is effectively useless.
KC NWSL gear is selling out in local stores. The players are consulted on decisions that affect them. Legends Field is not a forever solution, but it is steady, with infrastructure and signage that has simply never existed for a women’s team here.
KC NWSL is averaging 4,644 fans through the first three home league games and these are not clean comparisons for several reasons, but — that’s 25 percent more than any of FC Kansas City’s last four seasons, and more than double the Monarchs’ average for the same stadium.
These are fans, too, the stands full of the team’s red-and-aqua gear. They cheer at the right times, boo at the right times, all to the background of an in-stadium DJ playing hits like it’s an NBA arena. After one game, the stadium lights had to be kept on for players to go through 90 minutes of autographs.
“We’re going to keep pressing on, each and every game,” said Amy Rodriguez, the KC NWSL forward with 132 appearances for the U.S. Women’s National Team. “We play for a lot of pride in this city. We want to represent KC well. So we’re going to keep on our front foot, and we’re going to keep going.”
The opportunity here is real, and it is significant. The popularity of women’s sports has been debated for decades but is now in a tangible spike.
The NWSL has a national broadcast deal with CBS Sports and Twitch. At least in part because it was the first professional event back after COVID hit, NWSL Challenge Cup viewership was up 450 percent from the previous year.
This year’s Women’s College World Series was the most viewed ever, even with many games including the championship played on weekday afternoons. That event actually beat the NHL playoffs. The NCAA women’s soccer final was the most viewed ever, gymnastics viewership is up, volleyball is up 28 percent over 2019 and the WNBA is up over 34 percent from 2019. The most recent NCAA women’s basketball championship was the most viewed since 2014, with almost 3 million people watching.
These numbers are growing, and could represent an opportunity for networks to get value. Kansas City has a robust youth soccer community, a growing demographic of professionals under 35, and an often obsessive local pride. These are all opportunities for KC NWSL.
The Olympics are approaching. And same with the World Cup and MLS, the Olympics have always been an opportunity for the NWSL to gain audience. That’s enormous viewership, with the potential for the NWSL to bounce off that exposure and continue to grow. This is a good place to mention KC NWSL’s recent partnership with KCTV to broadcast eight games locally.
“We were even blown away by the social media outpouring and excitement around that,” said Amber Cox, KC NWSL’s COO. “And again, to Angie’s point, we know that people are really wanting to tune in, especially when the team is on the road. And we’re giving them an outlet to do that.”
A dozen potentially fatal complications remain. KC NWSL was winless through 11 matches entering Saturday’s game against the Washington Spirit in KCK. The setup at Legends Field is better than when the MLS team played there — superior field placement and lighting, among other things — but this can’t be permanent.
NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird called a new stadium “really important.”
The club’s vision is too ambitious to rely only or even primarily on youth soccer families, and the Longs are attempting to build all of this when even established teams in more established leagues are struggling with attendance out of the pandemic.
The Longs have raised the stakes. They are intent not just on surviving, but on thriving, on accomplishing a reach and popularity that no women’s team has achieved here. We’re still at the very beginning, with so many challenges ahead.
But we’re also at the beginning of the club developing credibility that its predecessor lacked. It’s a start, at least.
This story was originally published June 25, 2021 at 5:00 AM.